A Shot Above the Rest
by Lgiannoni
Summary: My first crack at writing fanfic. One shot maybe ... Joker and Dr.L a story similar to Suicide Squad Harley/Joker origin except Harley is now Lisa Marlowe a woman who was tortured her entire life with her own mental illness until she meets her first patient, Jay. Its a dizzy chaotic one shot on the love that Jared Leto's Joker has for a sad and beautiful therapist.


The human brain is the most powerful organ in the human body. It let's use see the world and develop our own perspective. This perspective can change as it usually does through many different phases of our life; it is a natural and organic process; And yet in my studies I have seen that for some... this perspective of this earth... can in fact change but also stay the same. Even when forced to change it will stay the same. Because of many diffrent reasons. Trauma being the main one. Trauma has always caused a lot of thought and opinions to become

Ingrained in the individuals brain to the point of becoming complete truths. For example if someone is sexually abused at a very young age the child is now traumatized and will view the world very differently then other children. There will be a constant need to keep things the same. Never change or look at things differently ... this has been what my entire career as a psychologist for the city of Gotham has been about. Effecting change in the unshakable and even the most stagnant of minds and thinking patterns. I for one know for a fact that even the most fickle of minds can in fact attempt to look at things a bit differently. Perspective is absolutely everything in this world. It can happen that you see the world as grey and dull when it is in fact multi colored and bright. You can look at your mother and see a codependent narcissist whose simple goal in life is to make all her children just as miserable as she is and then some or you can see her as an all giving and loving altruistic saint for taking as much shit as she did from her alcoholic verbally abusive husband and father to three children; but we're not talking about me.

We're talking about my studies and how I was convinced that after commiting my entire life of twenty seven years to my studies I would be able to finally call myself a liscended psychologist and I would finally be able to be taken seriously by the board of trustees for all my hard work on healing childhood traumas. I wanted to prove not only to myself or the board of stuffed trustees but to whomever came across my studies that it was in fact possible to overcome ... anything. Even the worst of it. All it took was a little bit of faith and a little bit of love. It was with my consensus and firm belief after many clinical trials and errors that love from either another person or an outside source such as a deity or higher power was what shook us out of our emotional comma; where we put our lives and any prospect of a future for our selves and our health to rest.

There comes a point in most people's lives, or atleast the one's I've encountered; when all you have left are your words. And at that point in your life ...you realize that its' all you can use to give some sort of meaning to this otherwise meaningless exsistence. To live a life driven solely by the heart, is both a beautiful one but a very dangerous one. You are constantly dancing on the border of sanity and insanity.

There was nothing left. There is nothing left. But this typewriter, and this blank page.

My mind, and my thoughts.

This is where I can be free. This is where the insanity does not live. I can only hope.

Nothing left.

Nothing left.

My family, or whatever scrap that was left of it, lived in a small crooked house by the sea. Everyone who looked at it thought it impossible for a family of five to live comfortably, and yet we always managed.

By this point in my life. Twenty-seven. I had just finished my Ph.D in clincial psychology with the state University. I was still living at home with both parents. My younger nineteen year old drug addicted brother, and my twenty five year old sister, who for the most part was also a drug addict but was never home.

She used with her boyfriend in a seperate apartment. This is the thing about addiction. You are not your addiction. You are everything that is not your addiction. You are everything that is inside of you.

No matter how many books I read. People I studied. Cases I researched.

I could not save my family.

But for as much as I know and from as far as I've deduced

YOu are those beautiful fields of flowers that stretch into the horizon. You are the vast sparkling blue watered ocean on a white sanded beach. You are the multi-colored sunset skys with cotton candy colored clouds. You are the wind that gently touches your cheek as you step outside on a perfect tempertured day after a week of not using. You are the entire senses of freedom given to you as you take those first steps without your addiction at your side.

You are not the darkness that lurks in the shadows of your mind, waiting for you to blink so it can take over.

It turned out that the darkness had pretty much taken over.

By twenty-seven I realized the truth of the life I was living.

I was made fully aware of my conditions.

I was for the most part totally and completely unloved by the people that raised me.

As if the rug had been swept from underneath my feet. Ass flat on the floor and very unwilling to get back up.

What was the point? My whole life was a lie.

Then I met Him. Let's call him patient Jay. My first patient at Arkham. my life changed forever.

The moment he stepped into the room I knew this patient was going to be diffrent.

The doctors on staff warned me he was physically ill by being pushed into a vat of chemicals. The chemicals had dyed his skin pale white and bleached his hair green. He was always ill and had some sort of a cold but was strong. When I first saw him I was expecting a more mangled looking man and yet there he stood tall; taller then me anyways . And young. Quite handsome . It came as a bit of a shock. His photograph in his file looked very diffrent to me then he did in real life. He had piericimf brown eyes but were sunken in from days of no sleep. I could see so much life in his eyes even though his file read he was a murderer and edged on psychotic meltdowns. I saw a man who had been through pain. They sat him down in front of me. A cold metal table in between us. He was handcuffed and his arms were tied to the back of the chair.

He sat up looking at me.

He looked at me from head to toe. Even leaned back on the chair he was tied to to look underneath. I prayed that my skirt was long enough to not make him think strange thoughts. I questioned if my two inch pumps were too much ... but I sort of didn't care to trigger any sexually or emotional reaction from him and I knew that he was never going to show it. I could immediately tell that he had s hidden agenda and he needed to execute it as fast as possible. Most serial killers mass murderers usually do. And because I was a woman he probably thought he had a shot with me to get his way. This is where he would be very wrong. I saw right through him like I did with every other patient I had

Before him in the university. He was not going to get his way. But I couldn't help but be intrigued and oh so very curious to why he was here and whether or not there was

Going to be room

To find redemption in his spirit.

I smiled.

He looked at me. Eyes glistening and elated he smiled showing very stained teeth.

"How do you do Doc, names Jay, go by the Joker..: but you can call me Jay."

"Nice to finally meet you, my name is Dr.L"

Just do your best to sound as professional as possible and you'll be able to mask your fear and consequential attraction.

"no offense Doc but you seem a little young to be a psychologist especially for cases such as these...I'm going to call you Alice..."

This threw off Dr. L

"I'm sorry... Alice...?"

"Just hope you know just because you followed a little white rabbit in a waist coat down a rabbit hole doesn't make you an adventurous girl ... In fact it makes you very stupid... wonderland is not all tea parties and cakes...hope you know what your getting yourself into Alice... we're all mad here ... and what I mean to say is no one in here is itching to get out of wonderland anytime soon...hope you're alright with that... "

"I don't know what you're talking about Mr.J; all I know is that I'm here to help you ... and it's not exactly me ...the person that's going to help you ..:it's this circumstance in front of you... you have to take it as a sort of opportunity to get better... I want you to see me as another one of your great and very ingenious plots ..:. I'm just another plot for you to get out of here ... except this time it's going to be done the right way"

He leans in. This time staring directly at my face. He's trying to read me. Hone in on all my insecurities and use my vulnerability against me. Wasn't going to happen.

"You've never been loved have you? "

"So I see you want to talk about childhood"

"Yeah why don't we open that can of worms..."

He rolled his eyes.

Dr.L stared.

"You show me yours if I show you mine."

She smiled.

Jay didn't think she had that in her.

He lets out his laugh.

"That's funny. I like funny."

"Thank you. I'll be here all week."

That was the end of our first session out of ten.

For years I had been trying to convince myself that I was in fact loved. By atleast my mother.

But when I met Jay I knew that I was not alone in this pain.

His mother was the same.

His father .. worse then mine.

I remember in one of our sessions together I confessed to Jay.. as unorthodox as it was...

"She would have three good days and I would start believing in her again. Then she would drink; and she would turn into the frustrated co-dependent narcissist she could never run away from."

"My sister left. But only to be in the same exact conditions as my mother except worse. My sisters boyfriend was not only an alcoholic he was also a drug addict. All the woman in my life were so beautiful

But so weak to these men that controlled them.

They were like their drugs.

The men got high on the real shit. The women got high on trying to save them but never could."

Atleast I was saved.

I was saved from addiction. I was saved from abusive relationships. I was saved from covert narcissism. I had to do whatever it took not to fall under the same trap.

What was given to me instead? isolation. Fear of the other that I carried with me for years. The need to please and be approved of at all costs. That's why I thrived so much in school but that meant a lot of lonliness. Complete lonliness, and for a long time too if I may add. Complete abandon of everything I knew, everything I thought I knew that could in fact make me happy but was in fact very false.

None of it mattered anymore. All that mattered was that I found some way to get out. I needed to get out. Immediately.

The intensity in Jays eyes said it all. He understood my pain more then anyone I had ever met. Even more then the psychologists I worked with and went to school with.

A man who struggled his entire life with goodness and evil. Also forgotten and abandoned.

Also unloved, decided to make the world laugh but would get laughed and booed off the stage, so he turned to making everyone pay for their riducle. Which in retrospect and in realty is crazy and psychopathic,

but when he's just sitting there,

so vulnerable and ready to talk,

ready to become a good person, and a decent man, with a young twenty something psychoanalyst, (me), who has also been unloved; well it was just so damn hard not to feel something for him.

Except when he was in front of her. For some reason they brought peace to each other, like fire and water they neautralized their insatiable need to destroy . Nothing else in the world mattered as long as they were looking into eachothers eyes.

Thats where peace was found.

Fast forward to two weeks after my sessions with patient J. He did whatever he could... to get me to help him escape like I knew he would but I refused

And when he understood I wouldn't budge he shockingly decided

To comply. He let me go and tried to get by on good behavior. He decided to go to a lot more meetings.

Even group therapy sessions.

He decided to start exercising with others and even playing basketball on the court with the other inmates. There was always something he wanted to get involved in.

His favorite activity seemed to be wood crafting. He was able to make bird houses from birch wood and little boxes for jewelry.

He wasn't a bad artist either. He had hundreds of designs set up in a sketchbook he kept by his bedside. All of tattoos he wanted to get or put on others but eventually the tattoos turned into landscape pieces and sketches of the interiors in the cafeteria and rec room. He really wasn't bad at what he was doing.

After another two and a half years at Arkham he was finally able to get out early for good behavior ... on parole and with the promise he would find a job.

The last time I heard of Jay ... patient Jay ... he found a small apartment, just on the out skirts of Gotham, he opened and closed a convinient store the owner let him watch. There wasn't anything to serious in the shop, mostly people searching for wine or a snack. He seemed to be doing pretty well for himself and for the most part he seemed to be happy... atleast that's what I heard ... I left a year or so after we met and I filed my last report labeling mentally sane and ready for recovery in the confines of the prison. After our sessions I knew some how in some way I managed to get through to him and he managed to get through to me. We found peace in our own way of being and speaking. It wasn't about me being an educated psychologist with a Ph.d ; it was about me meeting a person with the same pain and hurt as me and finding consensus in our journeys. Knowing that two very diffrent people with very diffrent ways of seeing the world can in fact come to some sort of consensus based on the sole fact that we had similar experiences in some way brought us together in a way neither one of us was prepared for. It was a very spiritual experience.

At least that was what I had concluded until I found him yet again standing in my living room after having broken and entered ... shirtless ... tattoos everywhere ... all the furniture turned over and objects knocked off the shelves... he had turned my small sanctuary into his own personal mad house

He even managed to write the words "HAHAHA " in black paint on both of the walls in the living room. And there I was with the groceries in one hand and keys in the other... not even giving me time to put anything down...

"Jay"

"You...you.You. You."he was shaking his head back and forth in either direction

"I don't like you." His dirty lipstick stained teeth showing through that elongated grin.

"Why...why did I meet you...why did you talk to me...you got inside my head Doc. And I ... Don't like when people try to get inside my head...There's room for only ONE !!!!"

His long skinny pale finger pointing at his skull, he edges in closer to the frazzled Dr. L she wasn't expecting this, and yet here he was; furniture, upsided down, walls marked with paint "HAHAHAhAHA" on each side of the living Room, lamps all broken and in the darkness he stood in the middle of the mess he had made.

He steps on all the debris and cracks glass with his foot, he's breathing heavily, and can't stop heaving. He steps into the light of the entrance.

She can see him now. His eyes as intense as ever looking deeply into hers. Locked forever in time. Two souls beautifully intertwined.

He was stronger then the last time they saw eachother. More toned. But he looked so much crazier.

He keeps staring at her. Raw and breathing heavily.

Dr.L drops her groceries and keys on the floor.

He moves in an inch closer she sees that in his hand he has a very sharp knife.

She looks at him in fear. She does not care anymore.

She moves in and wraps her arms around him embracing him completely holding on to him so tightly.

He moves in closer as well and leans into her neck he wraps his arms around her. Dropping his knife

"I thought I'd never see you again."

Lisa manages to whisper ... a tear spreading down her cheek.

She was so happy to have him near her again.

He comes in closer holding her tighter.

He breaths in her hair. He shuts his eyes right taking the moment in.

"That would never happen"

She backs away and looks at him.

She puts a hand on his cheek, "you look sick Jay. What happened..."

"I was away from you for too long" he puts his hand on hers.

"The asylum wouldn't let me give you my information. It would go against the policy."

"Lisa ... I'm not going anywhere now that I found you"

"You said you could help me... you said I could be better... you said I was a great man... I'm nothing but a clown see... I'm a joke ... I'm a laugh ... I'm a pun... the world laughs at me honey ... I ain't got nothing else to offer but funny!"

another very sick person she thought to herself, just like everyone she had ever met; she knew she wan't in danger and this was just another episode.

so she put the keys down at the side table on the entrance.

"Good evening Mr.J, happy to see you again, wish you had called, but it's always nice to see your face."

"He shakes his head, and jerks his body to give Dr.L his shoulders; he didn't want to be seen; she always forgot how sensitive he was about his disfigured smile, because she had concidentlly unrequitingly fallen in love with it and everything about him.

Something she never admitted to anyone but herself and never let be seen. She couldn't help but feel a pang of excitement that they were finally alone together

Again.

She knew however that he needed help.

YEars and years of her own abuse at home had lead Dr.L right to a more distrubing and male version of her self.

Her first patient, areound the same age as her self maybe one or two years older... how could she ever help him... he had just relapsed right in front of her after years of being free from mental illness...

"You know... I was supposed to kill you, I told myself I was going to do it the night you let me out of that horrible place, but then I saw your face and I couldn't bring myself to do it, for years your eyes have tortured me Dr.L, when they let me out... It was the first thing I was going to do... but everytime I got to your window I just couldnt bring myself to do it... I don't know why... something always got in the way.""

Dr.L started to walk over To the kitchen.

This made Jay jerk over to her mid way and stand in front of her. Towering over her by a few inches he looks down and grabs Dr.L by her throat.

"I should just do it now. It'd be good for the both of us Dr and patient to find some catharsis once and for all."

Dr.L chocked but she did not show fear. She coughed and managed to get out some words.

"You are not the voice in your head Jay.

You are more then that voice."

"shut up.

You bitch! You lied to me! I was supposed to be a free man after you talked to me and all they do is laugh they just keep laughing!, I'm not going out while they all keep laughing!"

His grip was getting tighter and now had both hands around Dr.l's neck chocking her even stronger ...

"I can't breathe..."

She grabbed onto his arms and dug her nails into his skin so he would let go ...he merley winced.

He looked into her eyes . He saw the green and blue that haunted him for so long. He let go of the Drs neck. Dropping her to the floor where she is left on her knees gasping for air.

He turns and starts walking towards the window where there was a fire escape ... he just couldn't kill her ... no matter how much he fought it... he was devoted

To her.

He turns around and watches her as she struggles on the floor. He rolls his eyes and shakes his head ... jay let's out a sigh of exasperation and leans over to the sink in the kitchen for a glass of water.

Jay brings the glass to the Dr whose still on the floor coughing and gasping for air... he feels guilt and shame for what he did, he leans down and bends over to hand her the water.

"Here, take the water... I'm sorry..."

De.L wanted to throw the water on the floor but out of survival had to take it for air.

She takes it unwillingly and drinks it to the end.

She breaths again and looks at him. Eyes bloodshot like his.

"What the fuck do you want from me Jay."

"Oh she curses!,

"Jay; You were released from Arkham. You didn't escape. You were let go. Off of good behavior. This is the second time you break into my apartment. Why can't you just focus on finding a job, a good job this time, not the stupid comedy club before you got into all this Joker business. You're a new man now, you're free, and you don't have to make the same mistakes as last time, I couldn't help you like you needed me to, and I can't help you now, all I can do is give you my blessings and letyou know that you are worth a good and decent life, because you are a good man Jay. I knew it from the first session we had."

This made the Joker stand upright and in her darkened living room, stood in the light of the entrance where she stood. He stood right in front of her and stared into her blue-green eyes, mesmerized yet again by their beauty, by her beauty. Her hair silky, wavy and brown, falling gracefully off her shoulders cascading into diffrent curls. Her soft and smooth skin showing in pieces from her silk blouse neatley tucked into her pencil skirt that showed her graceful yet

seductive figure. He edged in closer to her essence and felt for the first time in a really long time, possibly the only other time was when he first saw her, he felt home.

This scared the living shit out of Joker, and nothing scared him.

"God, you're so... "

He moved one hand, almost as if he was possessed to her face, wanting to touch her perfect skin.

Her eyes shifted to his finger reaching closer to her cheek.

His eyes wide and mouth a little open.

She was scared and held her breath. SHe decided to go on.

"You killed me the first moment they let you sit in that chair, and you know what, I'm so fucking grateful. I was on the edge of death alreaady. My heat was sinking and every day of my life felt as if I was a ghost. I felt so unseen, and unloved, as if I my whole life was pointless until you walked in it."

At this point the Joker was so intensly inammored with the words and the energy coming from LIsa's mouth, he couldn't resist but ask the question. But he knew exactly what she was going to say, and he didn't want to hear it. He didn't want her to see him so weak.

"Listen I ain't got nothing for you in these eyes that you can't find in any other sap that's weakto a nice ass and a pretty smile...I can't love. I will never love. I don't have it in me see...I'm not a person... I'm not human... I'm an idea, and I'm here for one thing and one thing only, to kill you so I can move on with my life. I can't get you out of my head see. You messed with it too much and only left me to a whole of pit and despair. Not only that, you made me feel all gooey in side... And I can't have that see..., I'm here to rule over all, so that I can show others how weak and dumb everyone really is, everyone just needs a clown to tell them what to do, so they can keep living thier silly little lives"

This for some reason infuriated Dr. L; and everything she stood for.

She at this point shifted from her space in front of the door and pivoted over to the kitchen, she saw the Joker follow her with his eyes and she started to cook dinner.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm hungry, I haven't eaten all day, would you like to stay for dinner, I'm making chicken." "Sounds good, Doc, but what about what I just said."

He manuvered his way into the lit kitchen and pulled out a kitchen stool over the island.

He sat down.

Lisa pulled out some knives and started collecting the ingredients she needed for the roasted vegetables and oven roasted chicken.

"I hope you like oven roasted chicken and vegetables, it's my mothers recipe; it's also really easy and delicious, but it takes about an hour to cook in the oven, if you're hungry now you can snack on some carrots or apple slices I have in the fridge, or if you want I have some wine chilling in the fridge, and a bottle of red sitting in the cabinet below your feet."

Joker didn't know what to do with all of this information.

He was sort of lost in the whole scenario taking place, he did not expect it to go like this.

He was expecting Dr.L to beg for mercy as he began to slit her throat with the swiss army knife he had stashed in his back pocket, as he tied her mouth and gauged her eyes. Ripped her lips like his to make her smile and watched her bleed to deah. But no. He was sitting in her kitchen and watched her making dinner. He couldn't resist this feeling of... warmth that he felt when he was near her.

"Well; what would you like?" She looked at him past her eye glasses and shifted up, her hair that was neatly tied up into a bun was now beggining to shamble out of place.

ONe hair slowly falling out of the bun at a time.

This sort of made Joker laugh, she was always so put to gether and hadnever seen her sort of come un done in the way that she was, she was still so damn beautiful.

He sort of stood up and started to walk over to her next to the oven that was already beggining to heat up for the oven.

He saw her hair and decided to put it back in its bun, she didn't move. He then let it fall out of place and let all her brown thick silky hair fall over her shoulders and down her back, she turns around to look at him, her eyes centered into his, he finally really looks at ther for the first time, up close.

She was a living angel. In this world of sin and muck, she was a walking breathing and moving angel.

Her eyes, mouth and nose it all glowed, and there she was in front of him. She didnt have to speak, she just had to be alive, and she was already saving him.

That's all he needed was her to be alive and present in this world because she was his hope for something better. Maybe just maybe.

"You're so beautiful."

He finally let the words fall out of his mouth.

"I'm falling in love with you babe, in fact, I think I've already fallen, and now I'm in. And it's driving me crazy. I don't know what to do."

"I don't know whether to end you, because it would be so fucking easy, or to let you live, because just knowing that you are alive is enough for me to keep going, or to marry you and make you my wife, so you never leave me. "

"But you gotta know something about me babe, I'm all bad. There is no good left in these bones. I don't want nothing good for you and I dont want nothing good for me. I just want to live in my own mess. I want to live in my own circus, do you think you can do that for me babe? Can you live for me in the way that I want you to? In the same mess I made? "

"Yes."

, I know that you were hurt. I know that you never felt loved. But you were not put on this earth to be laughed at. You were not put on this earth to be booed off the stage, you have a second chance right in front of you, every day, to be a new person, to become the man you were always meant to be, the man I saw when you were chained to that chair and forced to be human for a couple of seconds. You're not an idea, you're not movement or a revoloution, you're a man, with so much goodness inside of him, you've just been so hurt you can't see anything but the pain."

At this point Mr.J took his hand off Lisa's cheek and looked away. Aggravated he swindled a bit off to the side and decided to throw a glass cat figurine Lisa's mom had begrugingly given her as a way to laugh at her lonliness.

He threw it so hard it shattered into a million pieces on the floor.

"It's okay I didn't like that thing anyways." She said with a bit of a laugh.

He looks to the left showing his profile to her over his shoulder. He smirks. He then gives off his crazy Joker laugh.

This makes Lisa jump.

At this point He turns around one more time to face her. Eyes staring dead into Lisa's eyes.

"Say it." He manages to whisper.

Lisa without blinking stares directly into Mr.J's beautiful eyes; "I love you." He was about one foot taller then Lisa. He comes closer. SO much closer. To the point that his chest was edging on her lips.

She looks up.

He is still staring at her.

"What happened to you Lisa, to love a monster like me?"

At this point LIsa was pinned to the back of her front door. The Joker staring down at her breathing down her neck.

"Just stop questioning it J. Just take this love; I know it's not perfect, but it's whole. And it's all I have left. It's all for you, there is nothing else for me to do but to love you until I die.

HE slams his fist into the door and screams.

"I should have killed you, I should have killed you like all the others, but I didn't ..."

"God, you're just so... Good."

"You are too."

He smiles, a half smile creeping at the left corner of his mouth.

"You know what Dr.L. ... " His eyes intensly into hers.

"From the moment you stepped into that room, I fell in love, I didn't think anything like that would have ever been possible for someone as broken as me, but it happened, and I can't stop thinking about it. Or about you... that's why, tonight, for the last and final time, you will have breathed your last breathe and sung your last song, I can't take this pain of loving you any longer, you hear... your love can't save someone like me. So I'm going to kill you, and I'm going to keep living my life and following my plan. "

"FIne, atleast I will have died knowing I was next to you. That will be enough for me."

This threw the joker off "god you're just so ... good." He went over to squeeze her face but stopped himself.

He leaned into her ear and whispered

"I'm going to prove to you that I'm no good for you."

She leans away and looks at him

"I'll never stop loving

You."

He leans in and kisses her. Almost inhaling her essence.

Breathing her in for the first time.

Taking it all.

He lets his hand travel through her hair and hold the back of her head.

He continues to kiss her. And moves his hand on her lower back pushing her into his chest.

They embrace eachother.

The separate and look at eachother breathing heavily.

"I don't think this is in the policy Dr."

he smiles and grins


End file.
